“You think the Ravens are going to the Super Bowl?” Melvin Gordon asked his Uber driver in Baltimore on Saturday.

The Uber driver said yes.

"So what about the Chargers?” Gordon asked. “You don't think the Chargers are going to be in it?"

“Oh, hell no.”

Gordon smiled wryly as he looked into a camera recording the conversation. He knew one big thing the Uber driver did not: He actually plays for the Los Angeles Chargers. In Sunday’s AFC wild-card playoff game, the star running back will have a big say in whether the Ravens move one step closer to the Super Bowl.

Gordon eventually let the Uber driver in on the secret that he was no ordinary passenger. But not before the trash talk flowed.

“Philip Rivers, you don't even have to worry about him,” the driver said, chuckling at the idea that the Pro Bowl quarterback might challenge the Ravens. He later added: “They're going to put him on the ground.”

Gordon dropped hint after hint. He praised the Chargers’ ground game. He talked himself up in the third person. He corrected the Uber driver on the team’s record. He even suggested a little less Ravens rooting might help the driver’s gratuity.

“If you're going to work this tip now, I need you to be with these Chargers fans now,” Gordon said. “I like the Chargers.”

“OK,” the driver said. “I'm going to ask them not to put [Rivers] on the ground so many times.”